"Western investors are fueling the controversial East African oil pipeline through the back door" November 21, 2023

In the wake of EACOP’s harmful impacts coming to light, several leading banks, underwriters, insurance companies and investors have publicly declared that they would withdraw involvement in this project. In recent years, banks like Citigroup, HSBC, Mizuho, Société Générale, Mitsubishi UFJ, Credit Suisse and JP Morgan Chase have formally stated that they will not be a part of EACOP...

Despite their public pledges, research by Just Finance International (JFI) has found that all above-mentioned banks and several other leading investors are still backing EACOP through one of its financing partners, the Chinese parastatal oil company called China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). CNOOC is one of the shareholders in the EACOP project and an important player licensed to extract the oil and build the pipeline.

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An analysis by JFI of available investment data shows that the total funding from Western financial institutions is significant...The market value of the 10 biggest shareholders was 342 million USD in December 2022. The list features several leading Western investment firms...These include Citigroup, Credit Suisse and Société Générale, banks that have all publicly announced their withdrawal from involvement in EACOP...

JFI has reached out to all the finance companies in the list below for comment, and a summary of their response can be found here. Most of the investors argue that they can not disclose any information about their clients and are therefore unable to comment. Still, many of the banks and investors that responded claim that they will not invest in the EACOP...